Australian Open open for business

MP for Kooyong Josh Frydenberg and wife Amie, Seven Group COO Ryan Stokes and former ANZ chairman Charles Goode during the men’s tennis final on Sunday.
Photo: Luis Enrique Ascui

by
Joe Aston

Let’s face it: the great city of Melbourne is always the place to be. But it’s especially the case each year on the Australia Day weekend, as the Australian Open tennis finals play out at Rod Laver Arena.

While the weekend was ostensibly about tennis, it was also a pretty good one for power dining. At Crown on Friday night,
Guillaume Brahimi
was slaving away in the kitchen for a special guest: chairman
James Packer
.

After his loss to
Rafael Nadal
in Friday evening’s semi-final, we spotted Swiss legend
Roger Federer
on Saturday at
Neil Perry
’s Italian restaurant Rosetta, where a large entourage of family and friends was camped in the private dining room for lunch.

That evening at the women’s singles final, Packer was in the front row cheering on Crown ambassador Li Na to great effect – she defeated Slovakian Dominika Cibulková in straight sets. With Li’s husband “Dennis" in the player’s box wearing a Crown Resorts baseball cap and 200 million Chinese watching the match on TV, you can bet his bottomless dollar that Packer was feeling pretty sweet about that sponsorship.

He was joined by his Hollywood business partner Brett Ratner and The Wolf of Wall Street author Jordan Belfort (who fancies a bit of tennis himself, playing most days with his instructor and former pro Jeff Tarango). Interestingly enough, Belfort turned up in a RatPac Entertainment cap.

During a break in play, Packer also had a quiet word with star stock picker and Perpetual’s former chief fundie John Sevior.

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At the opposite end was Australia’s best-paid chief executive
Mike Smith
. Given his bank’s proclivity for all things oriental, we can only presume the ANZ boss was firmly in the Li camp.

On Sunday – Australia Day no less – a dedicated few backed up on a second consecutive night for the men’s singles final. Smith was one of them, this time with his outgoing chairman
John Morschel
.

Another stayer was Worner, who this time hosted AFL deputy CEO (and proprietor of South Australia)
Gillon McLachlan
, fresh off the plane from Aspen. In front of them were the PM’s ubiquitous parliamentary secretary
Josh Frydenberg
(himself no slouch at wielding a tennis racquet) and his good friend and Seven heir
Ryan Stokes
. Rounding out the Big Red Truck brigade were chief revenue officer
Kurt Burnette
and another one-time ANZ chairman (and, circuitously, the bloke who appointed now Seven Group boss “High Voelteage"
Don Voelte
as boss at Woodside Petroleum in 2007)
Charles Goode
.

In an all-too-rare piece of good fortune for the Victorian Premier,
Denis Napthine
managed to catch one of Nadal’s stray practice shots, throwing the ball back onto the court to surrounding cheers.

Sitting with him in the suited and booted section of Tennis Australia luminaries were newly crowned Australian of the Year
Adam Goodes
(who left during the first set to fly back to Sydney for Swans training on Monday morning), Senior Australian of the Year (and brother of Goode’s successor at Woodside,
Michael Chaney
)
Fred Chaney
, National Australia Day Council chairman
Adam Gilchrist, Deputy Prime Minister
Warren Truss
, federal Sports Minister
Peter Dutton
and previous Australian of the Year
Geoffrey Rush
. Then there was Sydney’s Daily Telegraph editor Paul Whittaker, the man widely known as “Boris" for his likeness to German tennis legend
Boris Becker
and his own prowess at the game in his younger days.

Not far from there was former Formula 1 driver
Mark Webber
and Sydney FC star Alessandro Del Piero, who had come straight from Etihad Stadium where he’d scored two goals in a big win over Melbourne Victory. Oh, and before that, he had lunch at Rosetta. That guy is living!

Thankfully for UBS, despite their very own Federer bowing out, there was still a Swiss national to cheer for in Stanislas Wawrinka. The investment bank’s top dog
Matthew Grounds
hosted the likes of Packer and Telstra chairman
Catherine Livingstone
out on the sunny patio of the garden villas, before taking his usual seat over the net, this year beside BHP ­Billiton CEO
Andrew Mackenzie
. Behind them were Westpac chairman
Lindsay Maxsted
, Brambles chairman
Graham Kraehe
and the Liberal Party’s federal director
Brian Loughnane
.

Also scattered around the crowd were Qantas CEO
Alan Joyce
, ASX chief executive
Elmer Funke Kupper
and Gresham Partners boss
David Feetham
, also fresh off the plane from Aspen, and another visitor we witnessed enjoying the delights of Rosetta.

The crowd’s biggest cheer may have been reserved for
Rod Laver
himself, when he was beamed onto the big screen as he was capturing Wawrinka’s victorious moment on his iPhone.

Just as in Aspen, where the roaring fire and the red wine is as important as the action on the slopes, the après tennis was top notch. Wawrinka was there with friends, including Greek shipping heiress Maria Angelicoussis, former world No.2 seed
Magnus Norman
.

And Woodside Petroleum (they’re everywhere!) CEO Peter Coleman, recalibrated into the early hours of Monday morning with several post-sharpening flutes of France’s best on the rooftop Siglo bar on Spring Street.

While we’re still in Bleak City, we hear former Liberal powerbroker
Michael Kroger
is flogging his Prahran pile.

It’s believed Kroger is seeking a cool $4 million for the expansive Victorian-style seven-bedder on happening Greville Street, which he bought for just $2.1 million in October 2009 after splitting with second ex-wife
Ann Peacock
.

But there’s no advertising on the go – consider it more of a Melbourne Club word-of-mouth style campaign.

Meanwhile, lucky we were in Melbourne for the tennis or we’d have been twiddling our thumbs back in Sydney. Our invitation to the annual Australia Day barbie of author Peter FitzSimons and Channel Nine host
Lisa Wilkinson
got lost, again!

Details of the bash are as scarce as the last Fabian Society conference, although we can confirm that former journalist
Mike Carlton
was seen removing his dentures and being spoon-fed mashed bananas by
Phillip Adams
.

Treasurer
Joe Hockey
was actually there, rolling up for some free advice on paying down the deficit (“let them eat cake"). Did Karl Stefanovic turn up with a stripper pole for Lisa? Thankfully, no. That would’ve been tough for penis blogger Mia Freedman to swallow . . .

As widely reported, Aussie expats (and visitors) to New York celebrated the Australia Day weekend by honouring News Corp chief executive
Robert Thomson
.

Foreign ­Minister
Julie Bishop
, ambassador
Kim Beazley
and Communication Minister
Malcolm Turnbull
all turned up to an American Australian Association Dinner at Wall Street diner Cipriani on Friday evening to fete the media veteran, whose acceptance speech was reportedly one for the annals.

Of his host, AAA, he joked that “to be honest, most journalists as inebriated as we tend to be don’t make it much past AA."

He went on to joke that his award only proved that “there are clearly not enough Australians in America.

“The visa waiver program is not working."

Thomson’s chairman
Rupert Murdoch
was in California on business and was unable to attend the bash.

General
Peter Cosgrove
’s appointment as Governor-General – expected any day now – will have one unintended consequence, by creating a vacancy on the board of Qantas.

Cosgrove has been a director of the airline group since 2005, invited on by former chairman
Margaret Jackson
.

Despite the tumult involved in the gig, it’s one of the most prestigious boards on the ASX, membership of which is highly sought after. So who might chairman
Leigh Clifford
be considering as a suitable replacement for the Lion of Timor?

Given its puzzling position in the national psyche, having an unimpeachable public figure on the books probably hasn’t been the worst experiment, so Big Leigh could well turn to another military type – say retired ADF chief
Angus Houston
– or a bureaucrat like
Dennis Richardson
.

More dangerous might be a partisan type like former Liberal minister
Nick Minchin
(who’s also being touted as our next Consul-General to New York) – but nobody ever accused Clifford of being afraid of danger.

Or could the space at the board table be used to blood Clifford’s own successor?
Alan Joyce
will certainly be watching with interest.

Another plum gig up for grabs is as a guardian of the Future Fund. While Finance Minister
Mathias Cormann
is expected to appoint
Peter Costello
as its chairman, there is still a vacancy on the board created by the departure of previous chairman
David ­Gonski
. Federal cabinet could be considering this one as early as next month.

In Brisbane this week, creditors of the failing homewares retailer Robins Kitchen gather to vote on a proposal by the colourful rag trade identity
Fred Bart
to steer the company out of difficulty.

The geniuses at Robin’s administrators FTI have put him forward as the company’s saviour.

Fred’s proposal is to allow creditor National Australia Bank to pocket a portion of the cash it is owed by the homewares retailer but some company insiders believe that money should instead be earmarked to meet unpaid employee entitlements.

By allowing NAB to get into the coffers, Fred could be lucky enough that the Australian government’s Fair Entitlements Guarantee scheme will pay out those staff.

The FEG scheme was established after National Textiles collapsed in 2000, leaving its staff owed $11.7 million of unpaid superannuation and other entitlements.

At the time, there was a laser-like focus on a brotherly connection: National Textiles shareholder
Stan Howard
was the brother of then prime minister
John Howard
. But here’s the thing: National Textiles’ largest shareholder at the time it collapsed was none other than Phil Bart, brother of Fred.

And if the government picks up the tab for Robins Kitchen’s employee entitlements, Fred will be able to thank his kid brother for making it all possible, while the taxpayer will cop it in the neck. Now we’re cooking!